There’s a story in Begging for It that really works for me. And no, I don’t mean the one I wrote, Symphony. Though I hope you’ll find it irresistible.

Fantasy is, as others have said, a realm of its own. When I saw that Rachel Kramer Bussel wanted erotic stories of female fantasies, my brain starting pinging like a geiger counter.

This idea was hot.

Written communication can exist in the littoral zone, neither shore nor sea. Does she want me to write a real person living a fantasy? Fantasizing? Or perhaps she wants the fantasy-me, a character whose very being exists only in fantasy?

In Symphony, I did my best to write all of that – the fantasy character who is also not beyond the edge of realism, experiencing what can be read as either a deep masturbatory fantasy or a fantastic reality.

I hope I’ll hear from readers on how they read the story, who they think she is, and what fantasy she’s living.

But what about that other story? Well, it’s called Lipstick, and M. Bird drew me into the tension of fantasy, the balancing point where it’s necessary to evaluate which is more attractive…thought or deed. I tripped over this sentence, and never completely got my footing back. “Hannah bets she smokes, bets she tastes like whiskey, bets she closes her eyes like she’s grieving when she comes.”

Fans self.

That’s far from the only excellent story that got my heart talking to my cunt. I like the lead of Tabitha the Cat – Lauren Marie Flemming wrote someone I’d enjoy hanging with.

Orcas cracked me up – Regina Kammer playing with the line between types of fantasy again – and played on my ties to the Pacific Northwest. (Yes, I was married on Orcas Island.)

Dollymop made me want to hug that girl, but Malin James also stretched my caring into her imaginary sexual future…a great trick. I want her to be happy, and I would love to be one of her fucks as she figures it all out.

I enjoyed the others as well, and Rachel’s usual high standards make it a good book throughout.

Now it’s time to go read some of these aloud…

Begging For It: Erotic Fantasies for Women by Rachel K. Bussel

Date of Publication: July 12, 2016

Blurb

What would you give – or give up – to fulfill your most cherished sex fantasy? In this Cleis Press collection, erotica editor Rachel Kramer Bussel brings us femme fatales and shy women, women on a mission and women opening up to new worlds of discovery: women who know what they want and are not afraid to beg for it! Let yourself go with these twenty-one tantalizing tales of tortuous longing and release.

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About Rachel K. Bussel

Rachel Kramer Bussel regularly contributes to Refinery 29, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan, and hosts readings around the country. A prolific erotica editor, as well as a much-in-demand sex educator, her titls include Come Agaon: Sex Toy Erotica, Spanked, He’s on Top, She’s on Top, Passion and Do Not Disturb. She lives in New Jersey.

And another short story has been chosen for publication! “Symphony” was my submission for an anthology with a female fantasy theme. I struggled over how to interpret that for a little while and then decided to write the fantasy itself rather than the frame story of the person fantasizing. Guess that worked out!

In “Symphony”, a musicologist masturbates for her colleagues so they can use her sounds to create music that can make listeners come. This story was inspired by a Kate Bush song about the opposite – “what they wanted was a sound that could kill someone from a distance” – made much, much more pleasurable.

I don’t have a publication date yet, but I imagine it will be in 2015. As always, there’s one more hurdle – the Cleis Press editing round, but I’m more than hopeful that I will make the cut. Fun stuff!